Let me explain.
Newcastle University is currently presenting a number of public lectures in the Curtis Auditorium under the banner of INSIGHTS. Sir Martin Harris gave the first of them this week on “Excellence and Inclusion in Higher Education.” He is to be followed shortly by Bonnie Briar, General Dannat and Baroness Shirley Williams.
In other words Sir Martin is a heavyweight. Amongst other things formerly Manchester University vice chancellor and then vice chancellor of the University of Salford, but here as the Director of Fair Access to Higher Education.
Interestingly in 2004 this is what Times Higher Education wrote about his appointment:
“Highlighting continuing tensions over access, Mr Clarke delivered a stinging rebuke to Chris Patten, Oxford University chancellor, over claims that universities were being “forced” to admit more working-class students.
Mr Clarke said that he was disappointed by “silly flutters from one or two Oxford people” and dismissed claims that the Government would use quotas and fines to socially engineer admissions.
Mr Patten had said the Government’s plans to interfere in admissions amounted to “appalling” social engineering and a threat to a free society.
Mr Clarke said: “I don’t think Chris has taken the trouble to understand what we are proposing, he’s been rather lazy about it. I think he’s rather let himself down in the way that he’s going about it. He’s gone back to being a party politician.”
There was a lot about Sir Martin’s lecture that I liked, that I applauded. He espoused the pursuit of excellence. He endorsed meritocracy. He drew a distinction between excellence which he favoured and elitism which he disapproved of. He assured his audience that Universities had to remain 100% in charge of admissions. Not a teeny weeny bit of pressure to admit more students from working class backgrounds? No positive discrimination in favour of some that becomes actual discrimination against others, such as all-women MP shortlists under Harriet Harman’s banner of Equality? – My interpretation of what he was saying. – No, just its encouragement by the provision of bursaries. The cost of being a student should be no obstacle to students.
Of course he saw his remit as the pursuit of equality of opportunity.
I will come shortly to the reason why I am writing this post, but I must observe here that I take a different stance in my play about equality of opportunity that you will see when you read the following extract:
Act Two, Scene 3
Eileen Winterton, chair of governors, is trying to understand why the head teacher, Margaret Williamson, has tried to take her own life. Joan Errington, her partner, and the English teacher at Brighouse School is trying to explain.
JOAN ERRINGTON We certainly do know how you get it wrong. It makes me feel so sick at times, especially now. You know when terrible things like this happen – you know I’m very, very close to Margaret – you really start to think. I’ll give you a strange thought. The word ‘Equality’ is at the root of a lot of our trouble. It’s mucked up education for years. We are not all equal.
EILEEN WINTERTON No, that’s heresy. Surely there’s got to be equality of opportunity?
JOAN ERRINGTON What does that actually mean? Don’t you see? All kids are different, very different, and they need different kinds of opportunity. Fair play is what they all want, not equality. If kids are not given the opportunity that’s right for them, especially ours, they won’t be equipped to meet the challenge of the times. They won’t be included in this cut throat world that’s coming in fast. And this country needs them to be. That’s what education should be about. Above all else, giving them that opportunity.
EILEEN WINTERTON It certainly is a rat race these days and a different kind of rat race from any before.
JOAN ERRINGTON But a rat race you can’t run away from. And it has got a good side to it, if you know where to find it. I’m sure none of this sadness would have happened to Margaret if people realised like we do that all kids have very different needs.
EILEEN WINTERTON Well, I’m afraid our old friend Karl Marx is still around in education. People are looking for that elusive level playing field, and with the proviso that no-one actually competes on it.
JOAN ERRINGTON I agree. They are looking for solutions to the world’s problems in the libraries of their minds, not in the classrooms of the real world.
EILEEN WINTERTON Of course it’s not just Karl Marx you know. The Achilles’ heel of the Liberal is naivete. And, when you don’t know you’re naive, well it’s highly dangerous.
JOAN ERRINGTON Insanity. King Lear.
In short, equality of opportunity is and always will be a mirage. Education should be about “opportunity in a fair society”, not equal, not the same, and not just to get into University, but real.
And this applies to children with special educational needs as much as to anyone else.
I underline this in the Prologue in Death of a Nightingale:
Prologue
Social reformers have not always grasped this. I fully appreciate that an international consensus set the wheels in motion, but I suspect that many have looked at this simplistically, seeing it as essentially society’s difficulty not an individual’s and, with the very best of intentions, projecting what they felt in their gut they would want for themselves for everyone else, a not uncommon mistake.
I set out the argument in some detail in Posts 4 and 5 of this Blog. Essentially Equality promotes mediocrity and undermines meritocracy. Equity, fair play, promotes excellence and endorses meritocracy.
I am sorry Sir Martin, you cannot have it both ways.
But this is not where I cross swords with him and his lecture, even though that is clearly what he is trying to do.
What was quite startling to me was that in a fifty minute lecture on a subject with the word “Inclusion” in its title, from first to last he never once mentioned Inclusion for children with special educational needs.
It is interesting when you come to think about it – I have read a lot about Inclusion of children with special needs into mainstream schools over the years – I have seen nothing that I can recall about its provision in Higher Education. Not once.
You would have thought that someone who was a Director of Fair Access to Universities would have this within his remit. Apparently not.
This is where Inclusion ought really to click in for those who have survived the bullying – or avoided it – overcome their learning difficulties and started to embark on their adult lives.
This is where I fully endorse it, but where the educational establishment and academia would appear totally to ignore it. Ah well. Maybe they thought, quite mistakenly as it happens, that Inclusion would save money, but here they knew it would cost money in terms of access and support. Perhaps they didn’t even acknowledge that there would be some children with special needs that would aspire to higher education. Perhaps it was providing them with unequal support.
***
By strange coincidence this is part of a BBC report today: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8495290.stm)
Disabled students wait for specialist equipment grants
Almost 12,500 students in England are still waiting for grants to pay for specialist equipment, figures from the Student Loans Company show.
The statistics reveal two thirds of students with a disability or special needs are still waiting for money.
***
And here’s another sad news item that has just come my way, hot from the press too:
Angry statement from the NDCS (National Deaf Children’s Society) – unfairness for deaf students in exams
In a debate on the Equality Bill in the House of Lords on 27th January, the Government refused to take action that would help ensure a fair and equitable exam system for disabled students. NDCS is deeply concerned that the current drafting of the Bill will allow exam bodies to discriminate against disabled students. Jo Campion, Head of Campaigns at NDCS, said:
The Equality Bill was meant to remove all traces of discrimination in exams, but instead maintains a system which is unfairly loaded against disabled students. It now enables a range of unnecessary get-out clauses for exam bodies to avoid having to make exams genuinely accessible.
Government figures show that deaf children are already under achieving at school. These new laws will make it even harder for deaf children to get the qualifications they need to be independent and successful in life. Deaf students and their parents will be expressing anger and disappointment today that the Government has sided with exam bodies rather than disabled students. (My underlining)
In 2005, the exams regulator withdrew support available to disabled candidates. NDCS successfully fought to get this support reinstated for deaf students, however NDCS continues to receive complaints from deaf students and parents highlighting that this support is not being provided.
NDCS is calling on the Government to urgently reconsider its position and ensure the Equality Bill provides genuine access to examinations for disabled students. Deaf students currently experience the following examples of discrimination in exams:
§ Failure to provide written transcripts for video or radio recordings
§ Failure to provide extra time to lip-read instructions
§ Being asked questions which are inappropriate for a deaf young person to answer. For example, a deaf student was asked in an English exam to describe how it felt to be a fan of a music band. The examining body refused to accept that the question would disadvantage a student who has no experience of listening to music.
***
Isn’t it ironic that this issue arises under the Equality Bill? It all goes to show how unfair Equality can be at times. Quod Erat Demonstrandum, to coin a phrase.
I am glad that all this affords me a rare opportunity to change camps here, and join the ranks of the Inclusionists.
I left my card with Sir Martin and with the vice chancellor of Newcastle University. I indicated that I would welcome a dialogue. I have also recently written to Professor Wedgwood at my old college at Oxford, Merton saying the same.
I had to observe to the Warden of Merton recently that the nice question today is whether some in academia live in ivory towers or cardboard castles. A few may even live in sandcastles or in a castle in the air!
Ah well, when I say the things I do, it is not surprising that the drawbridge is pulled up fast and the moat is filled with water.
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